“Indeed,” he said, puffing up slightly. “It’s an order, thus I must ride. The fatherland is in need. The Hussites are said to be preparing another attack.”

Elencza looked at him from under her eyelids and sighed.

She always sighs at talk of the Hussites, he observed. Clearly not without reason. There’s a rumour the girl suffered at the hands of the Hussites. Mistress Dzierżka has never spoken directly about it, but there’s something behind it.

“My way passed through Skałka,” he said and sat up in the saddle, adjusting his fanciful chaperon, “so I thought to stop by. And ask about Mistress Dzierżka’s health…”

“God bless you,” said Dzierżka of Wirsing. “Thank you for your concern, young Master Rachenau.”

She stepped over the threshold with great difficulty, leaning on a staff, every movement clearly costing her a huge effort. He noticed she was still unable to straighten her back. It’s truly a miracle she can get out of bed, he thought, for barely two months have passed since the attack.

Skałka was being rebuilt, the rafters on the new stable still exposed, and work was continuing on the new barns and sheds.

“My father told me to tell you not to be afraid, m’lady,” said Parsifal, tugging at his chaperon again. His mother had dressed him in it and he couldn’t grow accustomed to it for anything. “You are protected by the neighbouring landfried, let anybody try to touch you and he’ll have to deal with all the local knighthood.”

“Thank you indeed…” said Dzierżka, straightening up, as much as she could, narrowing her eyes in pain. “Are you going to page? For whom, may I ask?”

“Sir Egbert of Kassel.”

“Lord Kopaniec,” said Dzierżka, who knew almost everybody in Silesia. “A valiant knight, sometimes even too valiant. A relative of the Hackeborns of Przewóz.”

So it is true. Parsifal groaned to himself. And squiring is nothing but a preliminary to my betrothal.

“Lord Kassel,” Dzierżka continued, “is also a good friend of our Inquisitor, the Reverend Grzegorz Hejncze. They are comrades. Did you know that? Well, you do now. And what do you ride, laddie, on your way to render service? A Frisian colt? A decent mount, decent… but a pack horse. You’ll take a better.”

“M’lady… It doesn’t behove me—”

“Not another word. I am indebted to you and your father. Let me at least pay you back with a horse.”

Inquisitor Gregory Hejncze paraded before the squad with Egbert of Kassel, measuring up each soldier with attentive gaze. He reined his horse in before Parsifal.

“A new one,” Kassel introduced him. “Young Rachenau, the son of Sir Tristram of Buków.”